One Billion Searches in December

London, UK – January 14, 2014 -- Global ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS) site search provider SLI Systems (NZX:SLI) handled over one billion search queries for its clients in December 2013, representing year-on-year growth of 50 per cent. This far outstrips sales growth in the eCommerce industry overall, where compound annual growth is predicted to be around 14 per cent.

SLI provides services in web site search, navigation, product suggestions, and user-generated SEO. These services help shoppers connect with products they want, and that they’re most likely to buy, driving increased sales on sites using SLI. The rapid growth of these services reflects the increasing need for online retailers to optimise the customer experience.

“A billion is a big number. I’m proud of our technical team to have built the global infrastructure to scale for these volumes,” said Shaun Ryan, CEO of SLI Systems. “As more retailers have realised how effective search and related services are significant drivers of revenue and traffic, we have enjoyed growth well beyond that of the overall eCommerce industry. This billion-query milestone reflects not only the growing number of merchants using our services but also adoption by larger retailers with higher traffic volumes.

“Retailers are turning to SLI Systems’ technologies because they can recognise real improvements to online sales by making it easier for their customers to find what they’re looking for, along with driving more traffic from search engines,” continued Ryan.

According to Ryan, retail brands of all sizes need to use the most effective tools and services to enable them to compete with giants like Amazon. They increasingly need to leverage their internal expertise with technologies such as those provided by SLI Systems.

“Retailers that look to service providers to handle critical areas of their websites like search, shopping cart and check-out, mobile design, personalisation and more are well-positioned to grow a loyal base of customers and revenue as well,” he said.

About SLI Systems

SLI Systems (NZX: SLI) provides popular SaaS solutions that help online shoppers connect to the products they’re most likely to buy, directly driving increased sales and higher customer satisfaction for online retailers and other eCommerce sites. With offerings that include site search, navigation, merchandising, product suggestions, and user-generated Search Engine Optimization (SEO), SLI Systems is the most chosen SaaS-based site search provider to Internet Retailer Top 1000 retailers. The company’s patented technology continuously “learns” from the behaviour of visitors to deliver the most relevant possible results. This learning-based search and navigation technology empowers retailers and content sites to enhance customer satisfaction by helping site visitors find the products and information they seek as quickly and efficiently as possible, increasing site conversion and average order value. SLI Systems is a publicly held company with offices in San Jose, CA; London, UK; Melbourne, Australia; and Christchurch, New Zealand. For more information about SLI Systems, visit www.sli-systems.co.uk.